Beating in U.S. Hits Nerve in China

A Homeland Security officer's alleged attack at Niagara Falls on a female
tourist from Tianjin sparks public and official outrage.

By John M. Glionna

Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

July 30, 2004

TIANJIN, China — The graphic front-page newspaper photo has played to the
worst fears of this provincial river port city — showing a local
businesswoman beaten so badly that her face appears a sickly black and blue.
Her eyes are swollen shut.

The victim is a Chinese tourist who was
recently attacked during an outing to Niagara Falls, on the U.S.-Canadian
border. But the suspect isn't any violent criminal or quick-hit mugger. The
man who allegedly punched Zhao Yan repeatedly and doused her with pepper spray
is an inspector with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

Officer
Robert Rhodes is accused of throwing the 37-year-old gym equipment saleswoman
against a wall, kneeing her in the head and striking her head on the ground.
Rhodes, 43, was charged with violating her civil rights and faces 10 years in
prison if convicted. He said he thought Zhao was with a man from whom officers
had just confiscated marijuana.

The attack has touched a nerve with
Chinese officials and the general public here. In what the state-run press has
called an unusual move, Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing this week called on U.S.
Secretary of State Colin L. Powell to launch a "serious and thorough
investigation" into the July 21 incident. A Chinese-American trade group said
the U.S. bears "unshirkable responsibility" for what it called a serious human
rights violation.

For many Chinese, the attack confirmed their worst
nightmares of foreign travel and raised concerns about the safety of Chinese
nationals living abroad, especially in the United States. Some also say the
attack of a woman by a male police officer illustrates the image of the U.S.
as an international bully.

"I have been to many countries in the past
for business purposes, and the United States is the most barbarous," Zhao told
the state-run China Daily. The newspaper reported that Zhao has hired an
American lawyer and plans to file a lawsuit seeking $5 million in
damages.

College student Liu Peili said Zhao's experie nce illustrated
the gap between the virtues preached by the U.S. and the reality of life
within its borders.

"America always points its finger at other
countries, including China, about their so-called human right violations," the
22-year-old Tianjin native said. "So why then should an incident as ugly as
this occur right there in the U.S.? America always seems to do exactly
opposite of what it tells other countries to do."

For many here, the
incident harks back to the 1999 North Atlantic Treaty Organization bombing of
the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, by U.S. warplanes. Although U.S.
officials apologized for what they called an error, many Chinese have long
thought the attack was intentional.

Some believe that Zhao's assault
hints at xenophobic sentiment in the U.S. "America is a very safe place for
people who live there," Liu said. "But not if it's not your country."

In this city of 10 million people an hour's drive from the capital, Beijing,
the incident has promp ted days of media coverage, including two full pages in
the Metro Express on Tuesday.

The paper has received 300 calls and
e-mails from readers — most offering sympathy for Zhao and expressing
anger at the U.S. Several businesspeople related similar tales of violence
that occurred while they were traveling in the United States, and one Tianjin
native living in Chicago said he felt afraid in America, according to a report
published in the newspaper.

After the assault, Zhao received notes and
flowers from some of the 2,000 Tianjin natives living in New York, Metro
Express said, adding that she was approached by many "average Americans who
just repeated, 'We are so sorry.' "

In recent years, only a handful of
Chinese nationals have fallen victim to crime in the United States, newspaper
reports say. Last year, however, seven members of a delegation from
universities in China's Hunan province were killed in a traffic accident in
central Pennsylvania.

Zhao told authorities that she and two friends
were crossing the popular Rainbow Bridge near a U.S. Customs checkpoint when
Rhodes attacked. For his part, Rhodes said in a statement that he grabbed a
Chinese woman and two others ran away when he asked them to come to an
inspection station. He said he used pepper spray on the woman when she swung
her arms at him.

A business group called the Preparatory Committee of
the Commission for the Promotion of U.S.-China Free Trade has criticized U.S.
officials for the attack. The group said that, although it understood
America's need to beef up security after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, U.S.
immigration officers had no right to assault foreign businesspeople without
first finding out the basic facts.

Shopping at a Tianjin supermarket
Wednesday, Zhang Weihao said women were not humiliated this way in China.
"Women are supposed to be respected everywhere in the world," he said. "But
apparently not in America."